Mapmaking software

[The Minx]

Do any of you know about good, versatile and easy to use map-making software for gaming?

I've heard about Campaign Cartographer, is it any good, or are there better ones out there?


I've got a bunch of maps to make and its getting to be a hassle with all the hand-drawing.

[Hotfoot]

I use Fractal Mapper, which is a nice program that admittedly has a bit of a learning curve for advanced functions (and works best with a tablet), but also plays nicely with other software from NBOS, including Screenmonkey.

http://www.nbos.com

There are some free programs out there, I pointed Cyncat to one a while ago, but I can't speak as to its efficiency.

What sorts of maps are you looking to make?

[The Minx]

I use Fractal Mapper, which is a nice program that admittedly has a bit of a learning curve for advanced functions (and works best with a tablet), but also plays nicely with other software from NBOS, including Screenmonkey.

http://www.nbos.com

There are some free programs out there, I pointed Cyncat to one a while ago, but I can't speak as to its efficiency.

Thanks for the link, I'll look at that. :)

What sorts of maps are you looking to make?

Mainly maps of countries and continents, with contours, terrain, political borders, settlements, vegetation and the like. I would ideally like to have layers so I can decide how much information to hand out to players. Also, I would like to have them with a zoom capability, so I can easily do details for local areas while keeping stuff visible on the large scale maps in the right places. Right now, I'm using a scanner and a lightbox, and scanning maps, scaling them up in the computer and printing them out again, then using the lightbox to trace a new, local map. It works, but it's a hassle. So probably that would require some kind of vector graphics instead of a bitmap. Finally, it has to look nice. ;)

The ability to quickly fractalize the lines would be a nice bonus, and dungeons and cities would be very nice too, though they're not quite so vital right now.

It would be really, really nice to have them interactive so I can use my laptop to bring up data by clicking on them, but that's absolutely a luxury.

[Hotfoot]

Fractal Mapper certainly does fractal lines (if it didn't, I'd be annoyed). It also has masking for various levels of details, including secret GM notes. It has the ability for different types of sprites for map markers, there's a large set of free ones, and of course you can make your own.

Not sure about scaling up and down, but you can certainly make city maps separate from the world map.

[The Minx]

Looking over the new features they're advertising for v8.0, it looks like submaps are indeed a much-requested add on.

And not only do existing features include hyperlinks to gaming notes, but you can even do 3-d relief terrain and put it on a globe! Wow, I had been dreaming about that when I was still using Campaign Cartographer.

Looks like this is the thing. Thanks for the tip!

[The Minx]

I'm doodling with the trial version now.

Do you know whether it is possible to somehow import existing maps by scan or some sort of other gimmick and whether I can type the coordinates of individual nodes?

[Hotfoot]

Give me a little time to try it out, I know you can import images to act as backgrounds, but I doubt you can convert CC maps into FM with layers and all.

[The Minx]

Give me a little time to try it out, I know you can import images to act as backgrounds, but I doubt you can convert CC maps into FM with layers and all.

Thanks, I've figured out how to do the background image. That's a pretty nifty gimmick.

I didn't really expect it to be able to deal with CC maps, that's OK (after all, they're competitors). Being able to type the coordinates would be really nice though, since I have a shaky mouse hand. :)

[Hotfoot]

I know what you mean, I've taken to using a tablet, actually, they have (relatively) cheap ones for sale at Wacom recently.